Suzette Vidal

My journey to this place is not straightforward. My work as an educator and psychologist have been my practice and my art for most of my life. Several years ago I returned to drawing and painting, eventually exploring other art forms like papier mache, papel picado, and assemblage.  I am self-taught and also instructed and have been privileged to take classes with noted Chicano/a artists including Margaret Garcia, Roberto Gutierrez, Frank Romero, Margaret Sosa, Ofelia Esparza, and Sonia Romero, and to have worked in collaboration with Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin and Lucia Vigil Francis.

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My work is eclectic, but there are thematic threads that run through my creations. My work examines family stories and myths; the faces and places of my family members and their movements through time; the physical and spiritual interconnectedness between humans and the environment; our mortality and connection to our cultural and religious traditions; and our responsibility to each other, politically, socially, and historically. 

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My own roots are embedded in the history of the southwest, and the often conflicted relationships between Mexico and the US,  indigenous and European, Spanish and English, and Catholicism and Judaism.  My artistic endeavors are examples of my own struggles to find a place that explores the tensions of being a cis-gendered, bicultural, multi-ethnic, bilingual Latina/x/Chicana/x in this here and now. 

Peace and Blessings to you and yours,

Suzette Vidal